1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for forwarding a call in a Web-phone system, and more particularly to a method for performing external call forwarding between the Internet and a telephone network in a Web-phone system.
2. Related Art
As multimedia services become popularized, a large quantity of information can be obtained from the Internet and also a Web-phone makes a telephone call over the Internet available. Such a Web-phone includes a speaker, a microphone and a computer having a communication unit for connecting the Web-phone to the Internet. In a Web-phone communication service over the Internet, the Web-phone is connected to a host computer to receive directory information, that is, access addresses of calling parties and called parties over a plurality of private information providers, so that the calling parties and the called parties can be connected.
The Korean patent laid-open publication No. 2000-0018243 discloses a technique of forwarding an incoming call directed to the Internet to a telephone network and forwarding an incoming call directed to the telephone network to the Internet in a Web-phone or Internet-phone system.
The Korean patent laid-open publication No. 2000-0037646 discloses a technique of using both general telephone and Internet calls with a phone book storing telephone numbers to select a general office line network and the Internet when a general telephone is connected to a Web-phone module.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,125,126, issued to Hallenstal and entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SELECTIVE CALL FORWARDING, discloses a method and apparatus for selective call forwarding. However, in the techniques described above, all the calling and called parties of the Web-phone system should be connected to the Internet.
Thus, if all the calling and called parties of the Web-phone or Internet phone system are not connected to the Internet, the Web-phone or Internet-phone system cannot receive and transmit the call from and to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) and an integrated services digital network (ISDN).
Exemplars of recent efforts related to data transmission and telephone transmission include U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,692 to Shtivelman et al., entitled INTERNET CALL WAITING, issued on Jul. 10, 2001, U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,390 to Brankley et al., entitled DATA TRANSMISSION VIA A PUBLIC SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORK, issued on Nov. 14, 1995, U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,598 to Strauss et al., entitled TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK TO INTERNETWORK UNIVERSAL SERVER, issued on Aug. 17, 1999, U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,379 to White et al., entitled TELECOMMUNICATIONS CUSTOM CALLING SERVICES, issued on Jan. 11, 2000, U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,762 to Sonesh et al., entitled MULTIMEDIA TELECOMMUNICATION AUTOMATIC ALL DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM, issued on Apr. 4, 2000, U.S. Pat. No. 6,064,653 to Farris, entitled INTERNETWORK GATEWAY TO GATEWAY ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION, issued on May 16, 2000, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,379 to Smyk, entitled INTELLIGENT DATA PERIPHERAL SYSTEMS AND METHODS, issued on Oct. 3, 2000.
While these recent efforts provide advantages, we note that they fail to adequately provide a method for efficiently and conveniently performing external call forwarding between the Internet and a telephone network in a Web-phone system.